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Scouting Report: QPR v Arsenal

Before every Arsenal fixture, we’ll bring you a Scouting Report on the Gunners’ next opponents.

Former Arsenal midfielder Stewart Robson will give his pre-match view and you can get his post-match verdict in our Talking Tactics feature on Arsenal Player.

Arsène Wenger and his side face Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road on Saturday so, to find out more, we also asked journalist Yann Tear for his analysis.

Stewart Robson

STEWART ROBSON"Whenever I have watched QPR this season they have shown a lack of discipline in terms of their behaviour and team shape. The back four has plenty of pace with Luke Young, Nedum Onuoha and Anton Ferdinand, yet the two centre halves lack awareness and can be caught out of position.

"In midfield, Jamie Mackie is hard-working and honest, Shaun Derry and Samba Diakite will try to win the midfield battle and Adel Taraabt will drift into areas where he can demonstrate his talent. Unfortunately for QPR, he can lose the ball in bad areas and he is not a strong defender. Against Arsenal I am sure that Mark Hughes will add another body in the central area to stop the Gunners completely dominating.

"Up front, Bobby Zamora will lead the line. He has caused Arsenal problems before but he seems to have lost some of his athleticism to run in behind defences and usually receives the ball with his back to goal."

Scouting Report - Tactics

YANN TEAR, FULHAM CHRONICLE"At the moment, the most important issue around the personnel is whether or not Joey Barton will be left out of the side. Mark Hughes tends to play quite a conventional 4-4-2 with two holding midfielders, Shaun Derry and Samba Diakite.

"QPR's form this season has generally been very patchy and at home they have had difficultly and have not done well. That said, the win over Liverpool has made a huge difference to their hopes and that came out of nothing really because they had struggled in that game.

"It is hard to know how they will approach this in truth. The one thing you do know about Rangers is that you don't know what their pattern of play will generally be like. Hughes has not really set them into a pattern of whether they should play the ball out wide or through the middle a bit more.

"They know they are not going to see as much of the ball as they would like to in this game so they may be on the defensive for large parts of the game. I am sure that Hughes will not get them playing gung-ho but he does know that the best chance he has against Arsenal is to expose them defensively.

"You would have said Djibril Cisse would be their man to watch had he not been sent off in the last match [against Sunderland]. He has been scoring regularly but the problem for Rangers is that they keep getting players sent off. Adel Taraabt has had a few good games recently but he hasn't scored yet this season.

"It is difficult to pinpoint somebody who could cause damage at the moment but I would say the key player is probably Jamie Mackie because he has played very well and looked every bit a Premier League finisher. He got the winner against Liverpool and I think there is every chance he might fill in for Cisse. He deserves his chance.

"As for Bobby Zamora, I think the jury is still out on him. He got off to a great start but since then he hasn't really convinced. He has looked like a better version of Jay Bothroyd for sure and he holds the ball up very well but the trouble is that his relationship with Cisse does not get the chance to flourish because the latter has been sent off twice now. I think they could play very well together but at the moment Zamora is still feeling his way into the team.

"Arsenal are in such great form and have won seven on the trot now. They have also managed to knock out a couple of clean sheets too so it looks as though they have tightened up defensively. For some reason I do see a similar result here to the one at Everton, 1-0 to Arsenal. I think it could be quite tight and I don't think Arsenal are going to run away with it.

"Hughes will have seen that they struggled to break QPR down at the Emirates earlier in the season and he may think his side can do it again. He will probably think that the best way to get past Arsenal is to try and frustrate them."

Copyright 2015 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source29 Mar 2012

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